What's your plan for shadowlands?

[Undeadlord]

I have never multiboxed retail before. My first multibox game was wow classic which was cheap (15$ per account) and also I knew from the start that multiboxing would be very effective with dungeons and so on....Now that I have some multibox experience, I want to multibox retail as well but I'm not sure what to do. I heard something about 10-man gathering herbs/ores but that's not something that I would like to do. My most preffered plan would be to do dungeons especially high mythic+ keystones but the mechanics are way more complicated than classic so I don't know if multiboxing would be effective and I don't want to burn money just to find out. I can't think of anything else that would make sense to multibox in retail besides mythic+ and gathering mats. Retail has more variety than classic but still multibox is meant to be a dungeon tool mostly or just challenging party content. Assuming that mythic+ is possible then that would be very gold efficient considering that you will be able to sell solo boost runs.

Anyway,

what is your plan for Shadowlands?

what are you going to multibox and what comp are you going to use?

Can you give me smart ideas about what to multibox in retail?

[kate]

I currently have 5x druids and 5x hunters at the cap on both alliance and horde side, so I will level the druids first and gather, gather, gather my brains out to make lots of gold while I level, then do the hunters.

Druids will let me do random dungeons - 1x guardian, 3x balance, 1x resto, and the hunters will just be super fun to play.

This will also let me swap in hunters for the balance boomkins if balance isn't easy to box this go round - I think my hunters would use spirit pets to aid in healing.

[balton]

People, what of this comps are more efective to leveling in shadowlands( doing dungeons)?

5 Paladins
2 Paladins and 3 DKs
2 Paladins and 3 druida

I dont seeing beta reviews and i wanna know what of this class/comp is better...

[Feint90]

The reason you won't see many data on Beta is that as far as I am aware, you only get 1 beta account per battle net so you can't actually multibox it unless you hold multiple battle net accounts and manage to get access on all of them.

As far as composition: If you have never done M+ as a multiboxer (and that is your goal), I would not advice you to start with a melee comp as they are a lot harder then ranged/trinity comps. Interact with Target can bug out causing your characters to run all over the place and it is a lot harder to move them out of stuff individually then it is for ranged since there is more clutter around the boss.

Good comps in my opinion:
- Tank/Hunters/Healers (trinity)
- 5x druids
- Potentially tank/shamans/healer (which could be a shaman) but this is yet to see giving the changes going on with elemental atm.

Trinity will still be king as far as I can see but time will tell. The mobility and utility that hunters have are just really strong.

Druids can become really good but this is a gamble. The starfall changes and the talent that allows us to move may give us more mobility and the neutral legendary that buffs our affinity by 75% means we get roughly 5,25% healing per 5 seconds per druid. this does mean less damage as we give up the legendary slot but will allow us to stick around in 4x boomie/tank potentially. Starfall does a good amount of damage and the rotation is pretty stale so we could be able to macro it with output close to a normal player.

Shamans are a gamble. They have a lot of utility (chain heal, healing stream, earth shield(talent) etc). but with the current changes being made to elemental that are all over the place we won't know yet.

As far as tanks:
Paladin tank is currently king on Beta from what I heard from people with high dps and near 100% uptime of SOTR, blood DK is going strong. Bear is same old same old (which is not a bad thing).

Healers I don't know. Disc priest is pretty good on Beta but I never tried it multiboxing. Druid is still going really strong but is also a little harder to box imo then say shaman or monk. Holy priest may be a good pick with mass dispel and one of the M+ debuffs being dispellable now. I don't like holy paladins so they are out.

Dungeons are a big question as well. There are a couple of dungeons with nasty mechanics for multiboxers (last boss on bastion dungeon for example or the night fae one with the signs).

Mythic plus is really fun to box. Elay has even done some impressive keys in BFA going up to 12/13 I think.

I'm going 5x druids as I always main druid, followed by trinity and then whatever I enjoy playing.

[balton]

Nice explanation. I will try 5 druids so...

[Lyonheart]

5 Druids to start. If things stay as they are in beta.. or close.. my main team will be my paladins again ( 5xprot )

[Purpleflavor]

I currently have 5x druids and 5x hunters at the cap on both alliance and horde side, so I will level the druids first and gather, gather, gather my brains out to make lots of gold while I level, then do the hunters.

Druids will let me do random dungeons - 1x guardian, 3x balance, 1x resto, and the hunters will just be super fun to play.

This will also let me swap in hunters for the balance boomkins if balance isn't easy to box this go round - I think my hunters would use spirit pets to aid in healing.

Balance is so much easier to box on beta and streaking stars is baked into starsurge now, i dont think Boomkin has been in a better place than it wiill be

[Undeadlord]

As far as composition: If you have never done M+ as a multiboxer (and that is your goal), I would not advice you to start with a melee comp as they are a lot harder then ranged/trinity comps. Interact with Target can bug out causing your characters to run all over the place and it is a lot harder to move them out of stuff individually then it is for ranged since there is more clutter around the boss.

Starfall does a good amount of damage and the rotation is pretty stale so we could be able to macro it with output close to a normal player.


Interact with target works perfectly in classic with the move forward command added to it, can this break in retail?

It is weird that you consider melee teams harder since melee classes are meant to be close to the tank and they can dps while moving so they should be simpler to play but I probably underestimate the mechanics of retail. I don't know what kind of abilities/playstyle deal with well with such complex mechanics.

Can you macro moonkin rotation? iirc it wasn't easy to macro at bfa.

Anyway, thanks for the long and detailed answer, it is very helpful.

Interesting thoughts so far, most are talking about mythic+ and gathering so I suppose that's the two main things to multibox in retail. It seems raids or WPVP comes second and everything else is probably too casual. I like the fact that everyone takes seriously the m+ grind, I thought it was too hard for a multiboxer. I hope I will be able to sell boosts as a multiboxer.

[Lyonheart]

Interact with target works perfectly in classic with the move forward command added to it, can this break in retail?

It is weird that you consider melee teams harder since melee classes are meant to be close to the tank and they can dps while moving so they should be simpler to play but I probably underestimate the mechanics of retail. I don't know what kind of abilities/playstyle deal with well with such complex mechanics.

Can you macro moonkin rotation? iirc it wasn't easy to macro at bfa.

Anyway, thanks for the long and detailed answer, it is very helpful.

Interesting thoughts so far, most are talking about mythic+ and gathering so I suppose that's the two main things to multibox in retail. It seems raids or WPVP comes second and everything else is probably too casual. I like the fact that everyone takes seriously the m+ grind, I thought it was too hard for a multiboxer. I hope I will be able to sell boosts as a multiboxer.

I am not pushing high keys. my highest is +5 in the easier dungons. But prot pals have advantages over almost any other melee or tank comp. They have a ton of life saving oh shit buttons.. they can heal each other really well, and they do respectable dps. I bet if Ellay or someone that likes the challenge pushed a prot pal team.. they could do +10s for sure. Im not that great.. i have slow reactions and i do the +5s with no deaths. I might try to go higher before pre-patch. Yes, it takes some twilight dev+445+ gear, but in BFA they are doing fine. Not sure about shadowlands.. but my beta prot pal seems more powerful then my pals at the start of BFA. yet to be determined.. but i have a good feeling they will be great!

[TheShox]

Throughout Legion and BFA, I stuck with 5 tanks - 1 pally, 4 dks. This worked out really well due to all the healing going around. The downside is, the DPS isn't that great. I haven't attempted M+ Keys since 8.1 and only got up to 4, but doing melee with iwt works really well. It's also a lot of fun in PVP. The DKs swarm and stick to a target due to the IWT.

With Shadowlands and the removal of Hand of the Protector, I'm not sure how useful the Paladin will be for healing the DKs. Hand of the Protector is off the GCD. I've read that word of glory heals aren't that good, the stacks can't be used for a tanking ability if used for healing and it is on the GCD.

[Lyonheart]

With Shadowlands and the removal of Hand of the Protector,

they didnt remove it,, they changed it.. we got back word of glory and a talent to make it like it is now..still very useful.. just as useful as now. And dps seems way better in beta, even without the azerite traits and corruption

[TheShox]

I used the wrong phrasing. They removed the way it is used now. As of now, it is it's own spell and doesn't need any resources other than when the ability is ready. Light of the protector heals the paladin for 300% of missing health. In Shadowlands, Word of Glory heals for 150%. It was 300% and they recently changed it to 150%.

Going into Shadowlands, Hand of the Protector requires 3 Holy Power! It's in direct competition with a mitigation ability - Shield of Righteousness. That's what I meant by deciding to use a heal or use mitigation. Since I use HoTP to heal my DKs, in addition to tanking on the Pally, this change totally blows. Plus, it's now on the same row as Judgement of Light. I use JoL now for small, but consistent heals on anyone hitting the target. Over the course of a fight, it's a decent amount of healing when combined with 3x azerite trait - Grace of the Justicar.

[MadMilitia]

I'm skipping Shadowlands but from what I've heard the mobility requirements for Shadowlands dungeons will be just like the recent prior retail expansions. Which is to say pick highly mobile specs or don't pick any at all.

[Lyonheart]

I used the wrong phrasing. They removed the way it is used now. As of now, it is it's own spell and doesn't need any resources other than when the ability is ready. Light of the protector heals the paladin for 300% of missing health. In Shadowlands, Word of Glory heals for 150%. It was 300% and they recently changed it to 150%.

Going into Shadowlands, Hand of the Protector requires 3 Holy Power! It's in direct competition with a mitigation ability - Shield of Righteousness. That's what I meant by deciding to use a heal or use mitigation. Since I use HoTP to heal my DKs, in addition to tanking on the Pally, this change totally blows. Plus, it's now on the same row as Judgement of Light. I use JoL now for small, but consistent heals on anyone hitting the target. Over the course of a fight, it's a decent amount of healing when combined with 3x azerite trait - Grace of the Justicar.

I'm going by how soloing with one feels now.. and i know its subject to change or get nerfed. Also yet to be seen how well port pals will do in dungons. But based on my years of playing them.. they "feel" better than ever.. better than now or even in Legion. I have tested ret and prot. I kill things almost as fast as ret.. ret feels way squishy ( as they should I guess ) And i can pull 5+ mobs with no worry. So when stacking 5 ( or maybe one holy ) I think the use of word of glory wont be an issue at all. also, if i remember right, WoG can proc to not cost holy power. On beta, when i see it glowing, IF i need a heal.. i just use it then. It seems to proc a lot.

But i see your points.. I just think over all, they will be great! But I could be wrong. That is why i will level all my teams this time around.

EDIT: So i was wrong. Word of Glory is never free, the proc makes it 20% stronger heal. But even then, the class/spec feels powerful! I never feel like i wasted anything when i have to use it. And often i only use to it top myself off before pulling next mob(s)

[Andreauk]

I am going to 3 box at most.